Books
421 results
Page 30
'A Better Goodbye' by John Schulian
Living and dying in L.A.
A Better Goodbye might be typified as “nouveau noir,” a seething portrait of the dirty underbelly of that black magical dreamscape known as Los Angeles.
Articles
3 minute read
Paul Cleave’s ‘Trust No One’
Narrative manipulation as madness
In Trust No One, Paul Cleave moves into interesting territory that involves unfair terrain for the reader, with contradictory versions of the protagonist's interior monologue.
Articles
3 minute read
'The Burglary' by Betty Medsger
Breaking and entering
The extent and nature of J. Edgar Hoover's surveillance of peaceful protesters were unknown until seven antiwar activists broke into the Media FBI office in 1971. The documents the burglars took provided the signposts to investigate Hoover's horrifying subversion of the Constitution.
'Sex Is a Funny Word' by Silverberg and Smyth
Tackling the important issues around sex
Read Sex Is a Funny Word, no matter your age, whether or not you have children. Because Cory Silverberg’s radical and urgent message — sexuality with a side of social justice — is badly needed.
Articles
5 minute read
Lennox Randon's 'Memoirs of a Dead White Chick'
Experiencing another life
Memoirs of a Dead White Chick is a lively, entertaining read. It considers issues around gender and race — and the darker side of America's history of them — without delving too deeply into their horrors.
Articles
5 minute read
Robin Kirman’s 'Bradstreet Gate'
A tangent to murder
Bradstreet Gate is a promising first novel, a book first about uncertainty, but also about the difference between even bright students’ fantasies and “actual, multifarious reality,” as well as the odd, formative nature of friendships made on the threshold of adulthood.
Articles
3 minute read
'The State We're In: Maine Stories' by Ann Beattie
Modern relationships
John Updike surely would have approved of Ann Beattie's pitch-perfect dialogue and her descriptions of the things we all define our existences by in her first collection of short stories in a decade.
Articles
3 minute read
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Johannes Brahms and John Wayne
Johnny Broom and Marion Morrison
Can a 19th-century music master and a 20th-century movie star have anything in common?
Articles
5 minute read
'Words Without Music' by Philip Glass
From plumber to the gilded prizes with a ‘musical idiot’
Philip Glass's great experiment in sound helped release serious music from the grip of the serialists and academics and Aaron Copland — and opened Glass to older forms and orchestration, longer melody, and other traditions he would explore for the rest of his working life.
Articles
5 minute read
Jean Shepherd: An appreciation
The Great American Christmas Story
As an American humorist and storyteller, Jean Shepherd is right up there with Will Rogers and Garrison Keillor. Jerry Seinfeld has said that Shep “really formed my entire comedic sensibility.” Jerry probably grew up like me, listening to Shep dispense nightly wisdom on WOR radio in New York.
Articles
5 minute read